A Sliver of Sun Read Online Free Page B

whole world upside down. On account of her, I had a new dad, a new sister, a new house. In just a couple weeks I’d have to start at a new school. How
dare
she throw any more new into the mix. I glared at her a few seconds longer, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
    I jumped up and stalked into the house.

Chapter Four
    I made a beeline for Ginger’s bedroom because it was the only bedroom I had, but a chalk mark down the middle didn’t make it mine. Nothing was mine. Not the room, not the house, not the people in the house. Mama wasn’t even all mine anymore. She was Ben’s wife, and Ginger’s mama … and now she was gonna become somebody else’s mama too. I’d been booted from the top of the pile, clear to the bottom.
    I slid down to the floor with my back against the wall and started wishing for things. I wished for the comforting
clackity-clack
of Miss Claudia’s sewing machine, and for the yummy cinnamon smell of her peach cobbler. I wished for the sliver of sun in front of the couch where Mowgli loved to lay, and for the sweet scent of jasmine drifting through my open window. I wished for the pale blue of my bedroom walls, and for the little B-52 bomber dangling from my bedroom light. It was gone. All of it.
    But then I glanced over at my stack of unpacked boxes, and I realized that I
did
still have the bomber. I crawled across to the box and carefully lifted the little plane by its wire hanger. I rubbed my finger over its shiny metal wings and gazed up at Ginger’s light fixture. If I hung the plane up there, maybe one tiny part of the room might feel like mine. ‘Course I wasn’t even close to being tall enough to reach it.
    I heard footsteps behind me and tucked my shoulders, hoping it was Ginger and not Mama. I never expected it to be Ben. My heart started to pound like I’d been caught stealing, and I scrambled to my feet.
    He studied me with his dark brown eyes. “Whatcha’ doing?”
    “Nothin. Just thinking I might hang my plane from the light, like at home.”
    Ben looked from my plane to the fixture. Then he stepped over and took the bomber from my hand. He reached up and twisted the wire around the bottom of the little knob of the plastic cover so the plane dangled a foot below. “That okay?” he asked.
    I swallowed. “It’s real good. Thanks.”
    “Alrighty then,” he said. “Now go on out and talk to your Mama. She’s feelin’ bad about the way you ran off.”
    My hackles rose right away. I wanted to tell him I had every right to run off, and that I had no desire to talk to Mama. But experience had taught me that sassing Ben was best done in my own head. “Yes, sir,” I mumbled.
    Mama still sat on the porch swing, jiggling her glass so the little splinters of ice rattled together. She smiled when she saw me. “Hey, you. Come sit for a minute.”
    I sat, but I didn’t smile. The bowl of peas was still on the top step, but Ginger wasn’t around. Mowgli crept across the yard stalking a butterfly.
    “I wanted to tell you about the baby first,” Mama said, “but Ben didn’t think it’d be right.”
    “Why not?”
    “On account of we’re a family now, and this will be something that affects all of us. So he thought it right to tell both you girls at the same time.”
    My shoulders slumped. “It don’t feel like we’re a family,” I said.
    “You can’t expect it to yet, Piper Lee. But it will, in time. Especially if we all work at it.” She put an arm around me, and I breathed in the scent of her new perfume. “What are you wearing?” I asked. “It doesn’t smell like your vanilla.”
    “It’s called Morning Glory. Do you like it?”
    No, I didn’t like it. I wanted the vanilla. Why did she have to go and change every little thing? But I only shrugged. “It’s okay.”
    The swing rocked back and forth a time or two, and then Mama said, “Can you tell me why you ran off when you heard about the baby?”
    I snorted. “Cause it’s a little crazy, Mama. I never